Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 138: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

304 “Come back,” said Pierre. ‘ You’re more scared than angry. Why are you afraid, Jack?” “ Tt’s a lie—I’m not afraid!’ “Let me see that glove again.” ‘“‘You’ve seen it once—that’s enough.” He whistled carelessly, rolling a cigarette. After he lighted it he said: “ Ready to talk yet, partner?” She maintained an obstinate silence, but that sharp eye saw that she was trembling. He set his teeth and then drew several long puffs on the cigarette. “T’m going to count to ten, pal, and when I finish you’re going to tell me every- thing straight. In the mean time don’t stay there thinking up a new lie. I know you too well, and if you try the same thing on me again—”’ ‘““ Well?” she snarled, all the tiger coming back in her voice. “You'll talk, all right. Here goes the count: One—two—three—four—” _As he counted, leaving a long drag of two or three seconds between numbers, there was not a change in the figure of the girl. She still lay with her back turned on him, and the only expressive part that shored was her hand. First it lay limp against her hip, but as the monotonous count proceeded it gathered to a fist... ‘“* Five—six—seven—”’ It seemed that he had been counting for hours, his will against her will, the man in him against the woman in her, and during the pauses between the sound of his voice the very air grew charged with waiting. To the girl the wait for every count was like the wait of the doomed traitor when he stands facing the firing-squad, watching the glimmer of light go down the aimed rifles. : For she knew the face of the man who sat \there counting; she knew how the fire- light flared in the dark-red of his hair and made it seem like another fire beneath which the blue of the eyes was strangely cold and ‘keen. Her hand had gathered to a hard- balled fist. “ Eight—nine—”’ She sprang up, screaming: ‘‘ No, no, Pierre!” And threw out her arms to him. : 7 ” * a Ss Dee a ee THE ARGOSY. “Ten.” She whispered: “It was the girl with yellow hair—Mary Brown.” ) CHAPTER XXXIV. TIGER-HEART. T was as if she had said: ‘“‘ Good morn- ing!” in the calmest of voices. There was no answer in him, neither word nor ex- pression, and out of ten sharp-eyed men, nine would have passed him by without noting the difference; but the girl knew him as the monk knows his prayers or the Arab his horse, and a solemn, deep despair came over her. She felt like the drowning, when the water closes over their heads for the last time. He puffed twice again at the cigarette and then flicked the butt into the fire. When he spoke it was only to say: “ Did she stay long?” But his eyes avoided her. She moved a little so as to read his face, but when he turned again and answered her stare she winced. ‘Not very long, Pierre.” | “Ah,” he said, “I see! It was because she didn’t dream that this was the place I lived in.” It was the sort of heartless, torturing questioning which was once the cruelest weapon of the inquisition. With all her heart she fought to raise her voice above the whisper whose very sound accused her, but she could not. She was condemned to that voice as the man bound in nightmare is con- demned to walk slowly, slowly, though the terrible danger is racing toward him, and the safety which he must reach lies only a dozen steps, a dozen mortal steps away. She said in that voice: “ No; of course she didn’t dream it.” ‘““And you, Jack, had her interests at heart—her best interests, poor girl, and didn’t tell her?”’ Her hands went out to him in mute appeal. ‘“‘ Please, Pierre—don’t!”’ “Is something troubling you, Jack?” “You are breaking my heart.” ‘“Why, by no means! Let’s sit here comicbooks.con :